


The Girl Who Chased the Wolf Across the Stars

by savanting



Series: Kashimalin's 50 Kisses Challenge [26]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Force Ghost Ben Solo, Force Ghost(s), Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28193859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savanting/pseuds/savanting
Summary: Rey summons Ben Solo with the help of the last remnants of Darth Vader's helmet. One-Shot.[Prompt 14. A kiss so desperate that the two wind around each other, refusing to let go until they are finished.]Using Kashimalin's 50 kisses prompt list: https://www.google.com/amp/s/kashimalin-fanfiction.tumblr.com/post/178524845380/50-kiss-prompts/amp
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Kashimalin's 50 Kisses Challenge [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023708
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	The Girl Who Chased the Wolf Across the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own _Star Wars_ or its characters.
> 
> All plans go haywire. I had my last week of school before getting my bachelor's degree, so here is FINALLY another fic. I know it is late, and I am sorry for anyone who looks forward to any updates from me. @Five_seas gave me this prompt many weeks ago; it's entirely my fault that the Kissing fic project got derailed.
> 
> As for the story - I always think of Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo around Christmas because I was introduced to them around Christmas. I remember seeing _The Force Awakens_ seven times at the theater that winter of 2015. I remember having all the mixed feelings about _The Last Jedi_ but never lifting a pen to write fan fiction in spite of it all (isn't that telling?). And last year, with _The Rise of Skywalker_ , I saw the film right after coming back from seeing a performance of _The Phantom of the Opera_ (parallels, eh?). With TROS, though, I had to come to terms with having to "rewrite" what I wanted for Rey and Ben because canon creators had failed me. That doesn't mean, of course, that I don't try to work in unison with canon - sometimes. This is one of those times. I hope someone enjoys it.
> 
> Oh, and for posterity: I wrote this fic while listening to Halsey's "Young Gods" - for anyone who cares.
> 
> The original kissing prompt list: https://www.google.com/amp/s/kashimalin-fanfiction.tumblr.com/post/178524845380/50-kiss-prompts/amp

Once the Star Destroyers and other battle ships were taken as Resistance property, there had been little to recover from Kylo Ren’s chamber - though that still hadn’t stopped Rey from standing in the room with its static noise of the Force thrumming through it.

If she closed her eyes, she could sense the after-images: the way Kylo Ren stalked back and forth restlessly when he could not sleep, the sharp edges of anger and unease that clung to the walls like insects, and the overwhelming sense of _loneliness_ making her feel like she was drowning from the inside-out.

It was almost too much.

But amid the careful destruction of the room she saw one thing that made her heart nearly still: the wreckage of Darth Vader’s helmet, the same visage she had seen in many holograms when she had visited the remnants of Leia’s personal library on the planet Coruscant. The helmet, charred and mangled as it was, seemed almost like an after-thought.

Even with its unassuming appearance, however, there was the unmistakable draw of the Force tugging her forward, her hand outstretched before she even realized she had done so.

“Rey?” Her hand jerked away from the helmet, and she looked back to see Finn hovering in the doorway. “Are you doing okay in here?”

Rey plastered a smile on her face. “Yeah, I’ll be just another moment. Nothing much to see.”

It was almost as if Kylo Ren had never been.

It was almost as if Ben Solo had never been there to save her life.

That was somehow even more of a tragedy than even his waking life had been. Could an existence be so cleansed from the galaxy that even mourning seemed...helpless?

When Finn turned away, Rey wrapped a cloth around the helmet and put it in her satchel.

*

That night, she sat on her cot, the twisted metal mask set before her on the sheet. Just looking at it made her imagine she could hear maniacal laughter, freed from a wild animal’s cage, and she imagined lesser Force users would have been possessed. But she and Ben had always been of a different ilk: their thoughts could be invaded, but that didn’t mean that autonomy went with the intrusion.

Rey could imagine the long years that had been filled with dark whispers, the endless nights of taunts and cruel insight. Palpatine had been the puppet, but now he was gone. Ben had been freed before it had been too late.

With trembling fingers and closed eyes, Rey reached forward and allowed herself to _feel_.

The consequence was immediate: she felt a pull behind her navel as she was tugged out of her own safe consciousness. It was like shifting into hyperdrive while manning a ship. But that didn’t mean it was a welcome feeling. She felt like she had been snatched straight out of her body.

Her eyes flew open to see that she was surrounded by forestry on all sides - until she heard the tramp of running footsteps on the brush. Ducking behind a tree trunk, she saw two figures in the distance: the smaller figure wore black while the taller one wore a beige outfit that reminded her of the padawan clothing she had seen in records on Coruscant.

The taller figure looked back, his hood falling, and Rey nearly gasped.

_Ben._

He was a younger incarnation, obviously still a novice in his training, but his limbs were awkward and gangly, far from the sleek physique he had adopted when she had known him. There were no scars on this boy’s face, but something about him made her give pause. He wasn’t an easily approachable young man: the intensity of his gaze alone seemed like sparks from a flame.

But that emotion would have been all too telling in any sort of battle, especially one-on-one. Now more than ever she knew why he had adopted the mask, the sole thing that could hide away every single emotion without fail.

If she could just reach out, stand up and hold her hand out to him, could they escape his fate? But this wasn’t a galactical miracle. This was a vision from the past.

“Don’t rely on your emotions,” the smaller figure said, and Rey knew the voice immediately. Even shrouded in dark clothing, Luke Skywalker was unmistakable.

Ben’s grip on the lightsaber tightened. “I’m trying,” he said.

“Don’t _try_. You must learn to act - or to step away entirely.”

But whatever else this led to, Rey would never know: she felt herself slammed out of the vision, as if a wall had been cut between her and the vision’s take on the past.

When she opened her eyes, ready to be furious, she saw Ben’s Force ghost looking down at her with a melancholy for which there were no words.

“I thought I told you to stop,” he said, his voice quiet, as if he were just lightly scolding her for taking the last ration at a meal for herself. But she could feel the surge of emotion. She had overstepped her boundaries. Again.

“I wanted to know what happened,” she said, impetuous in spite of herself.

“Is it any of your business?” Ben asked. “Do you realize how morbid you are? Going through a dead man’s memories? And using the Force to do it?”

 _Because you won’t tell me anything,_ she might have said. _All I know is just from public records because your mother was a politician._

But that wasn’t the right tact. Not with Ben. Even as a Force ghost, sometimes his form wavered - and she worried that one day he would just fade away, lost to the ether of the great and unknowable sea of the Force.

“I’m sorry,” Rey said, and she did mean it. In the moment, anyway. “I just - I feel like we were robbed.”

_You died before we even had a chance to begin._

Ben’s form slid down onto the edge of the bed with what little corporeality he had. “I made a choice,” he said, “and I’m not sorry for it. I would do it again, a hundred times, a thousand times.”

 _Was I even worth it?_ But she couldn’t say that. Then Ben would disappear, and that would be that. He would return at his leisure, like a cat that had been offended.

“I don’t know,” Rey eventually murmured. “There had to be another way - _something_ I could have done-”

Ben’s fingertips slid beneath her chin and lifted her face until they were staring at each other. “Enough,” he said. “I told you to let the past die. And now that includes me too. You need to let go.”

Tears of fury erupted in her eyes. “No!” The word burst from her mouth as if she were just a petulant child, but she didn’t care. “I won’t let you become just a memory!”

Ben’s lips twisted. “Do you really think anyone wants me in their memories? I was the monster, Rey - the villain, the nightmare. If you have any love for this galaxy, you’ll let me fade from the minds of everyone scarred by what I did.”

 _But I love you more than I love the galaxy._ But wasn’t that too the ideology of a monster? Hadn’t she read Leia’s own accounts that Anakin Skywalker had descended into the darkness out of a twisted form of love?

If the only Jedi left in this generation tread that path, then where would the galaxy be from there forward?

“Please,” Rey said, shaking her head. “Don’t make me forget you.”

Before Ben could respond, she pressed her forehead to his chest, and then a moment later his hand brushed the back of her head. He offered a heavy sigh that shook through them both. “Your mind is your own, Rey,” he said. “I’m not going to fight that.”

“Good,” she said. This time, she looked up and found him staring down at her. She brought a hand to a wayward lock of his hair and smoothed it back. Then she pressed a kiss to his mouth.

Any other time, that would have been it: a chaste kiss, as simple as the kiss they had shared before he had faded into the Force, but this time Ben wound his arms around her. If his body hadn’t been pulsing with the energy of the Force, she would have thought she was being held by a living, breathing man.

Closing her eyes, she found it easy to forget that there was no life left for Ben Solo to live.

His kiss had become a hungry thing, and she responded in kind as their limbs tangled together. Even though he was an apparition brought forward from the Force, to her she could still pretend that this was an entirely different galaxy where he had never died and maybe even where he had never been a tyrant trying to control everyone he could.

But good things couldn’t last. One moment, they were the closest two people could be without being intertwined - and a blink later he was gone.

The only thing that told her she had not imagined it all was the throb of her parted lips.

Ben Solo belonged to the Force - and not to Rey. And it would never let her forget it.


End file.
